Leaping Read Online Free

been
counseled…he had listened. It wasn't his fault…surviving…breathing through
it…lasting long enough…to walk away. It wasn't his fault that his words…his
deeds…and he knew all that. It's what he'd say himself to someone else
wrestling with a situation they'd been thrust in…hadn't chosen…wouldn't want.
He'd said that in his pastor's voice, his soothing, shit-filled slide of a
voice, it will all be alright…it matters.
    He
just wanted to hold her. That's it. Anything more was impossible. Every word
ready to blow it up…blow them up. She was playing an impossible game. They'd
started with sex. It couldn't be anything more. They were good at
it…compatible. It's what they both lacked…him at least…connection…mindless
driving need…it's what they needed…he did…and she was clawing for it…chirping,
bleating for it, mewling and mooing for it, trying to drain him…like she could.
    He
moved from beneath her, went outside and peed in line with the wind. He went
in, shed his clothes, moved to her where she waited on the sofa, pulled her
onto her feet, her eyes soft with deep sleep, he started to undress her,
knocked her hands away and did it himself, hurried, but careful enough for a
man with a hard heart, a hard story, he unbuttoned, unhooked, unzipped, and
tugged until her skin and curves and temptations and secrets were his, for him,
for his eyes. He took her to the windows, to the floor, that soft honey shine,
and her on top and he wanted to feel her weight, he wanted to be crushed. His
fingers dug into her flesh, and his eyes rolled into his head and he took, and
took, and took. And he fell back and she laid over him, a shell of woman, an
armor of woman, and her hair and her limbs sprawled, and he finished, his mouth
open, and against her neck, and his lips gathered slowly to plant a kiss
against the flutter, his breath in her ear, but no words.
    Time
dripped from the eaves and they lay on their backs. Not touching. Staring at the crisscrossed wood above them. "He was…he
was with you…they…were with you," she said.
    It was like mercury had
been shot into his veins, the cold silver running through, slamming into his
heart. The betrayal…stunned him.
    Cori
Weston. He looked at her. She was already turned to him, the sympathy, the fear in her eyes.
    "That's
why," he said. A set-up. Nothing
more. Of course. The
world…the Godforsaken ruined world.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
    Chapter
5

 
    "Leave,"
he said. It wasn't difficult. His sense of betrayal…it wasn't hard to ask
her…to demand it.
    "Please…please…let
me explain."
    "How
did you find me?"
    "Alisha,"
she said, still naked, her hair her only covering sitting on the floor still,
and him already standing, dressing.
    Double
betrayal…his…tryst…and his sister and she was so damn
open with him…this woman…this woman who needed to cover herself.
    "You
have to go. Go now. I don't want to see you again. Go now." He found her
clothes, lonely discarded…crumpled…her jeans, her underclothes, her blouse, her
pride. He flung these at her, in her direction, and she made no move, but she
sat there, naked, untied, undone, unholy, unwanted, scab, scar, intrusion.
    "Get
out," he said louder, " get out," and he
did not know himself, this voice, these movements, "get out."
    He
wouldn't run and hope and cower and steal and stealth…she had to go, he went to
the door, then he saw her pan of soup and he went for this and he took it out
on the porch and he threw it and the lid and the pot and the white slash of
soup, and the gray, gray, gray world.
    She
came out then, and he waited, hands on the railing, head down. He didn't used
to be this. But now…he was.
    She
stepped close to him, and she wore the sweater and clutched the blouse, her
bra, the scarf, and her hair blew over her face, her lovely, lying mouth, her
beautiful, sinful, scheming, conniving eyes. "I want you to meet him. He
talks about you…all the time."
    "Get
out. Get the